Simma Lieberman

Will owning a passport make you less racist?
Lisa Francesca Nand, journalist and travel podcaster shares her experiences traveling the world as a bi-racial women, and how that impacts her worldview, and her career. Lisa is one of the top sports reporters and travel podcasters in the UK, and in this conversation on race, talks about the impact her work has had on reducing bias.

Jada Imani, an Oakland, CA-based MC, hip-hop artist, workshop facilitator, and founder of the Tatu Vision movement, is dedicated to helping co-create regenerative communities through her performing event production and hosting, healing practice, and coalition-building with communities of poets, Hip-Hop aficionados, entrepreneurs and Permaculture practitioners. She was born in Belleville, Illinois and spent half of her childhood in Illinois and Missouri.

Jada believes we are all influenced by race, and she thinks of leveraging her unique position of being from a mixed-race background to bring Black and White together.

Apart from sharing about Tatu vision activities, Jada shares her favorite cultural music mashups. Talking about Hip-hop culture, she points out the difference between a true hip-hop soul and gimmicky people. Disrespect to the hip-hop culture by such people brings a lot of disappointment to Jada.

Since childhood, Jada has loved music and gets inspired from every genre. She shares about how she uses music and performing to bring people together across race and make everyone feel included.

Talking about her experience of racism, her light skin attracts a lot of attention and has experienced painful comments from Black and White people.

According to Jada, a lot of millennials are more sensitive and interested in growth and liberation. But there is still hatred and racism among some of the young generations, most probably the effect of acquiring this hatred from their previous generation. Many of the white supremacists are millennials.

Jada says it most important to focus on your growth, peace, and love but also don’t avoid the crucial matters like racism!! It needs to be solved.

Jewish, Orthodox Rabbi and African-American, MaNishtana enters the race convo as a voice of young Jewish leaders who speak out on issues of race, racial justice and religion in the Jewish community and beyond. He shares his experiences, perspective and Jewish philosophy with us in all of these areas. MaNishtana is a speaker, blogger, screenwriter and author of two books. He is the author of “Thoughts From a Unicorn, 100% Black, 100% Jewish, 100% Safe

Episode highlights with MaNishtana:

Racial stereotypes within US Judaism and the outside world

The intersection of race, religion and social justice

How racism, immigration, and climate change are all Jewish issues

Dealing with other people’s bias, stereotypes and assumptions toward him as a Black Jewish man and an orthodox rabbi.

Race, racism and racial bias are still challenges that people of color have to contend with in the pursuit of success. Engaging in everyday conversations on race, with people different than you is one way to reduce racism and racial bias.

It’s widely accepted that a Black person in America has to be at least twice, and even three or four times as good as a white person with similar qualifications. Growing up in a lower-income Black neighborhood in North Carolina. my guest LeGrande Green heard his father tell him over and over, “A Black person in America has to be at least twice as good as a white person with the same qualifications to be successful.” LeGrande used those words to propel him forward. He graduated Princeton on a full academic scholarship, received four Emmy Awards as supervising producer of the Oprah Winfrey Show, and the NAACP Image Award. Even at that level of success, he still had to confront racism, and racial bias as a Black man in America.

In this podcast episode of Everyday Conversations on Race, LeGrande talks about his journey to the top, only to lose it all and find himself as a Black, gay man in America.

Key points from Episode 7 Race, Racism and Producing Oprah

Issues of safety as a Black man in America

Intersectionality of race, sexual orientation (LGBTQ,) and age- “So to me aging is about wisdom and about acknowledging the past, present and how I want to live my life” (LeGrande Green)

The reality of race and being called paranoid for calling racism

Race is not a scientific reality, but it is a social construct and it’s about color

No matter how successful you are as a person of color, you still have to confront racism and racial bias.

Internalized racism, self-esteem and eliminting self-doubt that is self-destructive

Racism, agism and invisibililty in the LGBTQ community

Speaking out against racial profiling

Why we need everday conversations on race to eliminate racism

Thanks for listening

Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of Everyday Conversations on Race podcast! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please head over to iTunes and leave us a rate and review to help us get our message about how to talk about race to more people. Remember to check out www.raceconvo.com and listen to other episodes.